“A Witch Hunt in Wyoming”

We are all offered tests to our beliefs. Sometimes, no matter how strong our faith is in those beliefs, they may become lost, perhaps changed forever, or hopefully, even strengthened. In the last week of May, 1985, I received one of those tests.
Taking a quick glance out of my living room window, I observed Marty, boxes in hand, approach my front door that Friday morning. He entered my cold, cluttered house wearing a puzzled look upon his face. Looking around at the mess, I left my box that was on the dinning table to meet him. His eyes meet mine, searching for an explanation while I took the empty boxes from his hands.
“Hey,” I greeted him, speaking slowly, placing the boxes on the bare floor. “Thanks for the boxes and coming by on such short notice.”
“Hey, no problem. I like having Friday’s off,” he answered jokingly. His eyes returned to the mess. “So, what’s going on?” he asked carefully.
“Damn landlord kicked us out,” I answered, walking back to my previous, unfinished box. Because we have been close friends now for over 7 years, there was need for him to ask the obvious next question. “He called this morning and said he’d kill us if we weren’t out tonight when he gets here.” My box was now full and the top replaced. Picking up Marty’s boxes, I began walking toward the stairs into the basement. Marty followed. “I need to get the rest of this stuff down here before Mom gets back with the truck.”
“He said he would kill you?” The surprise in Marty’s voice was genuine, but it made me feel a little apprehensive about it. In the recent few months, we had talked many times about how much of jerk this landlord of mine is, but my mind set was on being attacked and had turned into defense mode. Really, I think Marty’s tone was more of disbelief, disbelief that someone would do such a thing. It seemed hard for me to believe, too. “Really?” he added after we entered the disorganized basement.
Marty and I were a lot a like in many ways, although not physically speaking. He was up front and honest with most people as me, although not as frank as me at times. That honesty went along way with our friendship, even though we disagreed on some things. Taking the lids off of one of Marty’s box, I quickly proceeded to do some more hasty packing.
“Lu said ‘You have until six tonight to get out or I’ll burn you and your bitch of wife out with a blowtorch and shoot you both with my shotgun.” Marty was now helping me place my art work and other belongings into the boxes.
“What’s his problem, anyway? Did he give you a reason, or was he just being his usual?”
“Remember when I told you about the realtors that came over Tuesday to inspect the house?” I began to explain, reliving the events of that day and the phone call from this morning. On the Sunday evening before this, Lu had called us and informed us they had placed the house on the market since we would not purchase it. The realtor was to come on Tuesday morning to look at the house. Since I did not have to work it worked out well for me to show them around as he asked of me. On that morning, 5 car loads of 4 realtors showed up, not one as he had told me. When they finally left, ever light in the house was on, the bathroom faucet was running water at full, and most of the closet doors had been left completely opened. Lu called that night and said that more would be coming again the next day and would I show them around. Since I had to work, and it is a renters right to refuse, I told him no. He became very insistent, but I reminded him that we would be out by Sunday and they could show it all they wanted then. Surprising, he was agreeable with me, but he had no choice. “Well, he said that they told him that we had satanic paintings and devil masks hanging up in the basement. He was out of control angry. He was so mad that he couldn’t talk straight.”
“What paintings?” Marty began to say something else when the door bell interrupted us.
Hesitantly, we both walked up the stairs carrying the few boxes we had packed. My thoughts were fighting the images of this huge man and his gun and his blowtorch and his extreme rage. Why would he use the doorbell, then? Even though I have received praise for my active imagination, it can also be a shortcoming. My anger and my disappointment and shock and all of those emotions flooded my mind with a lake of fire that was being dosed with gasoline. When I reached the top of the stairs, the site of a police officer extinguished the flames with relief. Marty stood beside me as I explained to the officer my reasons for calling them. Providing as much detail as I could, the explanation took nearly half an hour. By then, my wife, Susan, my mother and my pregnant, younger sister had returned and stood in the doorway. The officer made notes as I told him that our landlords, Lu and his wife, who lived in Fort Collins, had put their house up for sell. They wanted us to buy it, asking several times, but we were not in a position financially to buy a house. We had only moved in here 3 months prior and our lease still had 3 more months on it. When we learned of their wanting to sell, we immediately began looking for another place. We had already found one about a week before Lu’s threatening call and had already begun the moving process. We had informed them at that time that we would be out by that Sunday. Apparently, that was not soon enough for Lu. I repeated to the officer the exact threats Lu had made to us and about our concerns for our safety. Lu’s wife was a friend of Susan’s sister’s friend. Susan told us many stories about all of Lu’s violent behaviors and his alcohol and cocaine abuse while they lived here. After explaining to him Lu’s reason’s for wanting us out so soon, I showed him the painting and the sculptures in question.
The officer’s only remarks were that they would contact Lu and that they would patrol the house on occasion today, “but in the mean time, I would suggest you get moved out of here before tonight,” he added then left without waiting for further comments or questions from us.
“What does he mean ‘Get out before tonight’ ? Aren‘t they going to help us! What if he shows up and we’re not done and he tries to kill us? What a bunch of crap!” The panic in Susan’s voice had evolving into anger. “Why the hell do you paint that devil carp for anyway?!” she yelled as her anger and stress turned into tears of frustration. “Why can’t you paint trees and stuff like everyone else?!” She stomped off to our bedroom.
“None of my work is satanic!” I yelled back. “We’ve been married for three years! Have you ever seen me do anything remotely resembling devil worship?!”
“You shouldn’t yell at her,” my mother upbraided me, using her condescending tone. “She’s right, you know.” Good ol’ Mom, always taking everyone’s side except mine.
“Oh, don’t give me that garbage,” I snapped back. “He said there was a picture of lion eating a lady with blood all over it and that we had candles in the shape of a pentagram on the floor and chicken blood everywhere!” Frustration was beginning to take hold of me. This outburst was not just about this moment, this event, but for a life time of non-support and false accusations from my parents.
“Well, why would he say that?” she replied in her ‘I-do-not-believe-you,’ accusing voice. In the past, I would retaliate with rebellious zeal, but I was trying to be a better person now and not be the angry young man anymore.
“Mom, you’ve seen the painting before,” I answered in calm voice. “It was one I did in college. Yeah, there’s a lady in it, but she’s not being eaten by a lion and there’s no blood. Bedside’s, it’s a saber-toothed tiger. And those masks are pieces I made from clay of animal faces in sculpture class.” Mom was not really listening and I was getting tired of defending myself to everyone, so I just went back down into the basement. Marty and my sister followed me.
“Did he really say all of that?” my sister asked me after we arrived in the basement. It was bad enough that I had to keep my all of my art work down here, hidden from view, at my wife’s demands. Now, all of this! There was an elderly lady in one of my painting classes at college. She was retired and had nothing else to do with her time but take up a hobby. Her choice was painting. Good for her! She painted her children’s houses from photographs that she had taken. To be frank… they sucked. Everyone agreed, even the instructor (although he was very coy about it), but the final product is not the reason for art. Art is in the doing. Living in Wyoming, there is a lot of Western art around, yet, most of the students painted different subject matter. Subject matter is not overly important either, the technique is as are improvements. This lady took it upon herself to be the class critic. She would walk around during class and give unsolicited “advise” to all of the students. One day she asked me, with lots of sarcasm, were I got my ideas. Before I could answer her, she said “I think it’s from eating to many donuts before you go to bed.” The elderly, retired, Japanese woman who was painting beside me quietly commented, “How rude.” I quietly agreed with her.
“He said that we were performing satanic rituals and that we wanted to drive all of the buyers away so we could buy this place cheaper. “
“He’s been watching too much “Scooby Do,” Marty replied.
“We wouldn’t buy this house even if we could. You can just feel the evil in this place! I hate going into that bathroom up there!” Frustration was building with each word and each item I placed into boxes. “Who does he think is to judge us anyway? All those stories Susan told me about his drinking and drugging. Coming home late and beating the hell out of his ex. Why she went back to him is beyond me. Did I tell you he served time for nearly killing her? He came home drunk one night, tied her up while she was in the bathtub and nearly beat her to death! Right in front of their 2 year old little girl!”
“I feel sorry for her,” Marty commented.
“He said I was putting on the masks and dancing around in a cape and masturbating.” More packing and frustrations from me. “There is nothing like that here! He was just here last night and did a complete inspection of the whole house. He said it looked fine and ask if we would reconsider buying. I know he saw the painting and everything else.” Becoming angry and venting was not being any different than Lu. Telling myself to be calm was working, but the thoughts kept breaking down the barriers. “He just got madder and madder. By the time we got off the phone, he was completely incoherent.”
“Realtors are funny people, Tim,” Marty explained. “They want everything to have that perfect little ‘All-American” image so they can make their sale.” He would know since his mother is one.
“Agreed,” I answered. “Ol’ Reverend Lu just exaggerated everything. All he had to do was ask me to take the painting down instead of making a big issue of it. It’s not like they were going to be showing it before we moved out Sunday anyway. The sad part of this is, I think he’s more than capable of doing it, you know?”
“Well, I find it hard to belief that a person who’s not even a Christian themselves can be so hateful toward someone who they think is satanic,” my sister added.
“Why do people make the wrong assumptions about things they know nothing about, anyway?” Marty asked.
“They’re just weak,” I answered. “Persecuting others with their misguided beliefs.”
The move was completed that day, thanks to a lot of help from a lot of people we knew then. It was all in the new house, but not unpacked yet. The old house still needed to be cleaned, but it was late and we were afraid to go back. Lu had not shown up as promised at 6:00, but there was plenty of people for him to answer to there at that time, but not now. Susan was very tried and upset, so she went to bed on our cold waterbed. I went to the basement to relax. Reflecting on the day’s events, I began to wondered how this witch hunt thing had gotten so out of control. It had even spread to people who I had known for along time and who knew me well. In my heart, I know that I am Guided by a Higher Power, being God. I am not satanic! Yet, how would I prove that in a court of law? I was glad that I did not have to try, tied to a burning stake. Are the days of witch hunts and burnings and killing the falsely accused really over? Or are they just modernized?
That day, a few things were lost. No person possessions, but I lost a days wages. A few days after, we talked to Lu again. This time, Susan listened in on it. He was just as belligerent and angry as before, refusing to pay back our $350 damage deposit. So, I lost that, too. Susan asked after the phone call was over how I could be so calm the whole time when he was calling her names and being such a jerk. He knew not what he had done, but I was more disappointed in her. All of them had just allowed there fears to consume them. My faith in my marriage was lost that day, as was my creative desires for art. Susan and I got divorced three years after this. Susan suffered from stress and was physically ill for weeks following this and lost more than one days pay. All of my confidence in my artist talent was lost. I questioned my reasons for why I painted and drew everything I had ever done. There was even a half-hearted attempt to repaint that painting, painting over the original, taking out most of the red in the back ground. However, it is now setting in storage, uncompleted. Some of that art, that was once proudly displayed and praised highly by my instructors and fellow students, has still not seen the light of day since being packed all those years ago. It took me over 10 years to find my desires to create again and it was tough for a while being myself. To this day, I think twice about my subject matter instead of letting it flow as before.